The Medical Image Perception Conference XIII brings together people investigating the extraction of diagnostic information from medical images. This includes radiologists, psychologists, statisticians, physicists, engineers, and others in this growing research community. The goal of MIPS XIII is to exchange current research, hold tutorial overviews, and have dedicated sessions on current challenging or "hot topics". The main strengths are its continued growth in attendance, its workshop setting, and its traditional gathering of new students and key researchers on the problem of extracting diagnostic information from medical images by human and machine readers. MIPS XIII is being organized jointly by the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB) Department of Psychology and the Medical Image Perception Society, and will run October 18 through October 21, 2009 at the Hotel Mar Monte located near the UCSB campus. Five topic areas have been selected, each reflecting an important dimension of the radiologic image interpretation process, that are especially relevant for the digital reading environment: (1) Human Perception of Medical Images, (2) Observer Modeling, (3) Image Processing and Computer Aided Diagnosis, (4) Impact of display &ergonomic factors on image perception &performance, (5) Technology evaluation methods including ROC methodology and statistical methods. For the MIPS XIII conference we will feature an innovative series of presentations exploring connections between medical image perception and cognitive neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience is a rapidly growing area within neuroscience that has been aided by the development of non-invasive imaging techniques such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electroencephalography (EEG). These technologies have allowed neuroscience methods to be applied to humans (as opposed to animal models) in high-level cognitive tasks such as target recognition, visual search, and perceptual organization. These tasks are imminently relevant to medical image perception although this connection has been almost entirely unexplored. We hope that MIPS XIII will serve as an opportunity for medical image perception researchers to learn about new approaches and to interest a new set of researchers in issues related to medical image perception. Opportunities for advanced, interdisciplinary training of young scientists interested in medical image perception research and its relevance to disease prevention and treatment are often limited at the university level. Since 1997, MIPS has received NIH support to provide an opportunity for interested students to attend the meeting, present their work, and interact with recognized leaders in the field. To date, 65 students have been awarded scholarships to attend the meeting. The primary goal in supporting these students is to create opportunities and offer supportive mentoring at this formative stage in the trainee's career to enhance their research potential and likelihood of success. PUBLIC HEALTH SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT (provided by applicant): As long as radiologists continue to interpret medical images, detection of abnormalities will be the center issue in performance of diagnostic systems. We need to understand the cognitive and perceptual mechanisms underlying the report of abnormalities. This in particular stresses the multi-disciplinary nature of the MIPS conferences.